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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Four killed following Muslim protests in Ethiopia

(Oct 23, 2012, ADDIS ABABA, Arab News)--Four people, including one police officer, were killed in
Ethiopia Sunday as protesters attacked a police station where Muslim
demonstrators were being held, an official said Tuesday. "One police
officer was killed while two police officers sustained injuries, and
three members of the (protester's) group were killed during the
violence," government spokesperson Shimeles Kemal told AFP.

The
attack occurred Sunday in Gerba in the Amhara region, after
demonstrators gathered to protest what they call undemocratic elections
of the Supreme Council on Islamic Affairs, Ethiopia's highest Muslim
representative body. Shimeles said the group attacked the police
station with firearms and machetes after the arrest and tried to
"forcefully release their members."

Several people were arrested
after the deaths, and police are searching for several people who
escaped after the violence, but Shimeles said calm had returned to the
city. Elections have been held throughout the country this month to
select the leaders of the Islamic Council, though many Muslims say they
have abstained from the vote, accusing the government of appointing its
own candidates.

Monthly protests and sit-ins have been ongoing since
January by some Muslims who say the government is unconstitutionally
interfering with Islamic affairs by trying to impose the moderate Al
Ahbash sect, mostly alien to Ethiopia. In July, 17 Muslim leaders were jailed following protests in the Ethiopian capital. Nine are still in detention without charges.

According to official figures, nearly 34 percent of Ethiopia's 83 million people are Muslim. Ethiopia's constitution bars the government from interfering in religious affairs and calls for a secular state.

This
month, Ethiopia's new Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said the
government respected religious freedom, but said some acts of religious
extremism had been uncovered in some parts of the country. He said extremism would not be tolerated and the government would take necessary measures to prevent such acts.
Source: Arab News